Little Birds
by FoxQuill
Summary: Two little birds fly home to nest, and then everything goes to hell.
1. One

**1.**

Swift Holmes enjoys living in Baker Street with her father and adoptive grandmother, Mrs Hudson. She spends most of her time helping her father on cases, playing the violin, composing music, or writing, as she passed her GCSEs and A Levels aged ten and refused to go to school after that. Children can be cruel, and Swift has no desire to sit in a crowded room with brash, obnoxious kids with no inclination to learn any more than they had to. She had enough of that in primary school, so she learns everything she could at home—willingly helped by her father whenever she asks—and roams free until roped into the latest case that had been mildly challenging enough to stump the morons at Scotland Yard. Except D. I. Lestrade; she likes him. This particular fact annoys her father immensely as he thinks the man is an incompetent idiot and refuses to learn his name even, although father and daughter are united in their opinions of one Sally Donovan.

Swift's father is not ordinarily a sentimental man, but there is one topic of conversation that is off limits, and that is Swift's other parent. She had taken to thinking of them as a parent when she was about eleven; she couldn't decide whether they would be male or female. Obviously she had to have a mother somewhere, but she doesn't know whether her mother was connected to her father romantically, or a surrogate was used (she was too similar to her father, and an amateur DNA test she had conducted aged six showed that she wasn't adopted). There are no photos of her father with anyone else in the flat, although obviously the flat itself is important as her father refuses to hear anything about moving, even when the toxic gases escape from the beaker and the flat is deemed too hazardous for residency. They just move into the flat downstairs which 'has been done up since the thing with the trainers, it's lovely now, new wallpaper, new carpet, no more damp, and definitely no more missing-murder-evidence trainers'. (Swift makes a note to ask about that, but she's never allowed because nothing existed before her birth. D. I. Lestrade has been given _strict_ instructions not to tell her anything, either, even though she worked out when she was seven that he had been coming to her father for help since over half a decade before she was born.)

Mrs Hudson won't tell her either, and although she makes vague allusions to past cases constantly, no one other than the people at the Yard—whom she doesn't like very much, something about drugs busts and endangered lives—is mentioned.

When they move back into their own flat and her father spends almost two hours making sure everything is just as it was before, Swift grows increasingly frustrated, but resigns herself to composing angry, violent pieces for the violin, full of crescendos and clashing chords with reluctant resolutions. Sometimes her father is present when she plays them; she waits until he's well out of the way before she plays _Frustrato_. He, in turn, plays pieces that convey his mood, varying widely, except for when he's maudlin, sort-of-not-quite high, and drunk. In the first too instances, which are often dependent events, he plays one lullaby over and over, trilling and flowing gently and comfortingly. (Swift often hides behind the sofa with her favourite white fluffy blanket to listen and fall asleep. Her father is yet to realise). When he is drunk—a rare occurrence, but common enough for there to be a trend—it's a love song: intimate and intense and passionate and caring all at once. Swift creeps out to leave him alone for that one.

So they solve cases, have deep personal conversations through the medium of violin, and muddle on through all of it.

(Swift decides later that maybe it would have been easier to live a normal life, even if it would have been nearly impossible. Her violin case, a heavy pressure on her right leg, asks if she really means that, and Swift doesn't know the answer.)

Really, it works. Swift puts petty criminals behind bars, her and her father put dangerous criminals behind bars, her father works on trying not to end up behind bars for murdering some of the people at Scotland Yard, who have yet to put anyone behind bars. D. I. Lestrade acts as an unofficial (and unwanted, in her father's case) uncle, and Mrs Hudson as an unofficial (and much more accepted) grandmother. Swift is fluent in Italian because she loves it, and can converse in almost any other language to enough of a degree that she wouldn't be mistaken for the average tourist. She plays concertos and sonatas and canons and performs a few times at the little concert hall where they solved that case of arson that one time (a very, _very_ misguided declaration of love), although her father refuses to play anywhere other than Baker Street. She publishes a murder-mystery novel under the pseudonym 'A C Doyle' because she's sure she heard her father mention an Arthur Conan Doyle before and because it feels right. (She decides it stand for Artemis Conan Doyle; Artemis always was her favourite goddess). She also publishes a small volume of poems under the name 'Artemis' alone, without any surname at all. Both sell reasonably well and Swift puts the money in the bank. She still hasn't worked out where her father gets any of his money from, although she suspects her real uncle has something to do with it. Her real uncle is very cool, but she has only seen him twice in her entire life because her father pretends he can't stand him (Swift doesn't know how much of it is faked, only that there is some degree of faking going on) and he's always busy with work even if the two did get on. She has D. I. Lestrade to stand in, anyway, even if _he's_ busy with work, too, half the time. Usually, however, it's work that Swift is involved in, in one way or another (she's less picky than her father when it comes to cases), and the detective inspector has remarked on several occasions that the Met should just hire her now. He was only joking in four of those instances. In any case, Swift doesn't want a career with the police force—not directly. Too many rules and regulations and health and safety guidelines. Maybe she'll follow in her father's footstep.

Whatever her plans for the future are, they're sent spiralling off track by a trip to Sainsbury's late on a Friday night.

Swift's father hates shopping, but sometimes it's a necessity that he can't avoid, especially if alcohol is involved. Swift would have no problem acquiring whatever alcohol her father wanted, with or without an I.D., fake or not, but Mrs Hudson would give her the special look she reserves for when one of the Holmeses has done something that really isn't okay, and Swift hates being on the receiving end of that look. Her father does too, no matter how much he hides it, which is why he's dragged himself up off the sofa and managed to assemble some sort of outfit that is some degree of acceptable in order to make the loathed trip to the shop. They need milk, butter, bread, eggs, and a twenty-four pack of Guinness—the only alcoholic beverage Swift's father drinks, ever—so Swift grabs a basket and starts in the dairy aisle. It inevitably ends up with her father snatching it off of her because she isn't going fast enough, and sending her to wait by the checkouts. Swift is neither surprised nor annoyed by this outcome. She _is_ surprised and annoyed by a light-haired man in a knitted jumper and jeans handing her one of his three bags of shopping and pushing her ahead of him, calling her Wren.


	2. Two

**2.**

Wren Watson loves her Dad to pieces. She does. It's just that he needs to stop crying in his bedroom when he thinks she can't hear him. That's why she keeps trying to set him up with people from his clinic: to try and get him to move on. Maybe if he moved on, he might actually be able to speak to her about her other father, because that is about as taboo in their little London flat as Judaism was in Nazi Germany. And maybe that's a bit too soon. She'd ask her father, but she's not in the mood to be given the 'not good' look, which is just as intense whether her Dad has had seventy hours sleep that week or seven. Also, he's on one of her dates at the moment, with the hot nurse that Wren totally would have hit on if he wasn't about three times as old as her. And gay. The fact that she already has a boyfriend is irrelevant; he thinks it's hilarious when she got other people all flustered. Wren knows psychology and biology and uses both to her full advantage.

Her boyfriend is a tall, strapping brunet who plays football, yes, but apart from that is about as harmless as a mayfly. She calls him that, sometimes, when they're messing around. It's funnier because his birthday is the third of May, too. Wren's is the fifteenth of June, and he calls her a cuckoo. Cuckoo in the nest. Sometimes it's funny; sometimes it makes a hot rock settle low in her stomach. Sometimes she doesn't feel like a Wren—she tells her Dad on one particularly bad occasion and they make a nest of cushions on the floor so he can hold her inside it, reassuring her that she belongs here, that he loves her and always will. School is boringly easy but for her friends—Wren passed her GCSEs while her classmates studied for their SATs, and her A Levels in Year 9. No one other than the necessary teachers are aware of this—so she sits at the back of the class and doodles, waiting for break and lunch when they can convene in the little room they found at the end of Year 7. She sells one of her classroom doodles for a ridiculous amount of money, so she keeps doing it and puts the money in the bank for a car. W. W. becomes the next big rising star in the art world, and Wren tries to keep a straight face when they study one of her oil paintings in their art lesson (although she's not sure whether she wants to beam with pride or sink into the floor with embarrassment). Her friends comment on the similarity of the style of the painting and the style of Wren's previous class work, but she just laughs and they accept it. Wren's friends are good at accepting things. They know a lot about Wren, but hardly anything about her life: her missing father, her qualifications, her art. The only thing they do know about is her dancing, because Wren couldn't hide that even if she wanted to (okay she could, but she enjoys it too much to try and remember not to dance whenever any music whatsoever comes on). They know a bit about her piano too, but not that she achieved Grade Eight when she was eight years old; nor that she performed in the Royal Albert Hall when she was twelve. She's plays for them sometimes, accompanying whoever wants to sing the latest hit, saying she doesn't know some of them, even if she could have worked it out as she was playing. She joins the orchestra at school at her friends' suggestion, accompanies the school choir, performs at the school concerts. Her Dad sits at the back, beaming like he couldn't be prouder, whether she's on stage in London, or in the school hall. Wren strives to make him that proud in everything.

Wren learns to love the stage, starts to perform in ballets and other dance shows, competes in the school dance troupe. Her Dad comes to every show. Slowly Wren is able to push the desperate need for her other father down somewhere in her stomach where she can forget about it if she tries hard enough; her Dad is doing all he can to make up two people, and is doing a rubbish job of trying to hide it. In return, Wren drops the constant dates, and instead begins to try and encourage him to talk to people other than herself, Aunt Harry, Auntie Mary, and Jenny from the front desk at the clinic.

Auntie Mary is around more, too, and Wren suspects that she is part of the reason the circles under her Dad's eyes are slowly diminishing. Auntie Mary isn't strictly an auntie, not biologically, but Wren's called her that for as long as she can remember. Auntie Mary tells her once, just once, about how she pulled Wren's Dad together from so many scattered sticks when a tall and dark blew him down like the big bad wolf. She doesn't blame Wren's other father, though, simply says that she's on this side because her Dad needed more at the time. Auntie Mary is blonde, willowy, and slightly terrifying—once when he's drunk, her Dad says she was an assassin once; Wren's half inclined to believe him—but she's good with cuddles and girl stuff (because Aunt Harry is entirely /too/ good with girl stuff, and also alcohol) so Wren pretends she's not as scared of her as she is. As she might be. Wren hasn't decided yet.

Whatever Auntie Mary used to be, she owns a tiny, quirky bookshop now, and Wren spends many after schools curled up in the corner with the latest newcomer. There are only a few that she's liked enough to buy in the past year. Auntie Mary offers to let her stay at the bookshop, to hire her, but that would be both boring and not conducive to all her practices for dance and music.

The one day a week that isn't taken up by the aforementioned practices is Sunday, and that's shopping day. Wren is not a fan of shopping day, as it means she is dragged from whatever activity she was previously embroiled in, and shut into the stuffy old car to drive two miles down the road to Sainsbury's. Then she is left at the checkouts, with strict instructions not to wander off, until her Dad returns, pays for the shop, and dumps a few bags into her hands. Wren is good at very few of these things, and enjoys none of them. She is still dragged along regardless.

One of Wren's main issues is that standing still at the checkouts is boring, but there's a rack of magazines just a few steps away (okay, more than a few, but she takes them like she's stepping over a river). She peruses the rows of awful, neon covers, scoffing at most of them, making faces at a few of the most idiotic, then crouched down to browse the more interesting issues amongst the puzzle books and colouring pads. She's there for longer the she thinks she should be, but she hasn't heard her Dad looking for her yet, and he's not waiting at the checkouts when she goes to look. They're empty apart from a tall man with wild black curls who looks a bit dangerous. Wren frowns and leans against the metal bar surrounding the area, pressing away from him as much as she can. The man is muttering to himself under his breath, until he barks out an order telling someone called Swift to come here. No one moves. The man huffs and calls again, standing up and twisting to look at Wren. He calls again, looking directly at her and Wren ducks backwards under the bar and gets ready to run.


	3. Three

**3.**

The tall man frowns.

"Swift, come here."

"I'm not Swift," Wren says, when she finds her voice eventually. The man sighs.

"I thought you did this experiment on identity last month? Forget it. I can't get the idiotic machine to work."

Wren doesn't move straight away, but when he beckons impatiently, she inches towards him. Her Dad has to be around her somewhere, and there are security cameras if things go really badly.

The card is not even in the machine properly and Wren raises an eyebrow. The man scowls at both her and the pin machine.

"You know I hate those things."

"I don't know you."

"Stop being asinine and make the thing work."

Wren sets her jaw but puts the card in correctly and hands the reader to the man, who frowns, but taps in his pin number. Wren can't see the keypad, but she knows the pin, knows the code. A small, vindictive part of her brain tells her she should steal his card and use it to buy something really expensive, just because he's being quite rude and more than a little scary, and Wren thinks it would probably serve him right. While she's contemplating this, and fighting the impulse to take it right there and then, then blinks because somehow she's outside the shop with a bag in her hand, being chivvied into the back of a taxi that has appeared out of nowhere.

"Hey! Stop! Let me out! I don't know who you are!"

"Swift, stop it—yeah, just here—calm down."

The cab stops and Wren launches herself out of the door and onto the pavement. They're stopped outside a café with a reddish canopy emblazoned with the name Speedy's in white. There are a few people inside, but none of them look up when Wren dashes in. Behind her, the man pays the driver.

"Heya, Swift," says a tall boy from behind the counter, and Wren nearly screams.

"I'm not Swift!"

The boy keeps grinning, nonplussed.

"Who are you today then, or are you doing that experiment on identity again?" Wren is starting to hate this Swift person. "Hey, your dad's calling you."

"He's not my dad," Wren says, but she's not shouting this time. Her voice is dangerously quiet as her fists clench, and she only vaguely notices that the boy has stopped smiling for the first time. Wren's spoiling for a fight now, so she goes outside to pick one. The man is unlocking a black door with gold numbers on, labelling the place as 221B. He leaves the door open, and Wren marches after him, up a flight of stairs and into a small, cluttered flat. Downstairs, the door shuts with a quiet click that somehow travels all the way up to where they are now.

"Who do you think you are?" Wren grits out, every muscle tense, caught between wanting to flee and wanting to take a swing.

"I think I am Sherlock Holmes, father of Swift Holmes, brother of Mycroft Holmes, son of Michael and Adelaide Holmes, consulting detective to the insufferable metropolitan police. Are you going to agree now, or are you going to tell me that I'm wrong and I'm a figment of my own imagination?"

The impulse to punch him right in the centre of his pale, haughty, angular face increases.

"You're a creep. A sick, crazy weirdo who is quite obviously _blind_ , because I am not Swift Holmes, whoever she is."

"Swift, stop it."

Wren gives up her attempt to stay calm, and the screaming starts.

 **[swift]**

The cool night air makes Swift frown and stop. She already knows that the man lives nearby with a daughter about her age, although they drove here in a Ford Fiesta. She knows he is a doctor, and also single. Understanding the situation, however, is escaping her, and reacting seems to be just out of her ability too. A vague part of her brain wants her father's gun, and regrets not wearing the boots with the dagger sewn inside. She tries to ignore it. It's harder than it should be. This isn't like the however many times she's been kidnapped before. Then she knew what was going on, how to deal with it, and that if it all failed, either her father or D. I. Lestrade (most probably the former) would find her.

"Who are you?" She manages at last. There's something more—she knows she's missing something and that this man is important but she can't focus on it. It's there in the angles of his face, the colour of his eyes, but it's impossible and Swift can't process it, not here, not now. The man (captain, served in Afghanistan), frowns and pauses next to a black car two paces from where Swift's standing. It's a Ford Fiesta. Swift brands the number plate across her brain, and the actions not entirely conscious or voluntary.

"Are you okay, Wren?" The man asks. Swift focuses on the wrinkles in his face, the lines of age and worry, the too far apart eyebrows; tries not to focus on the wrong lines, the lines that are screaming at her something she can't accept.

"I'm not Wren," she says quietly, staring at the fraying cuffs of the woollen jumper peeking out from under the jacket (anxiety, PTSD). Even as she watches, he tugs down on the right sleeve with the same hand—it's got the car keys in; the other hand is holding the one bag of shopping that he kept to himself. She tries to relieve herself of the plastic bags he had given her whilst simultaneously not looking above his shoulders, which is a tricky thing to do as she's inherited her father's height. The word father echoes strangely in her head, like her voice in the empty auditorium during her rehearsals for concerts. The two far apart eyebrows pulled closer together, and the crease between them got deeper.

"What are you talking about?"

Swift recites Paradise Lost in her head. She loses it seven lines in and bites hard on the inside of her lip.

"I'm not Wren," she says again, because she can't say what she wants to say, can't bring herself to say it because it's impossible, it can't be possible. Somewhere in her head, a tiny voice that she doesn't allow herself to listen to says that it would be nice if it wasn't impossible. Then, because she has to, says, "I'm Swift."

The man sags and it's only thanks to the proximity of the car that he doesn't collapse. A dull grey, pallor washes over his face, and Swift takes a hesitant step forward to catch him if he does fall.

"Swift? Swift, is that you?"

Swift nods, caught between sprinting away and towards, and the man looks as though the same thought process is running through his mind. They meet each other in the middle, stumbling into each other's arms. There's sobbing coming from somewhere, and a dampness on Swift's shoulder, but she's not entirely sure that the man is the only one crying. After too long and not long enough, they pull away and Swift stares up into his eyes, _her_ eyes.

"I'm sorry, I don't know your name," she whispers.

"John, my name is John."

John. The name sounds _right._ Nice and kind and caring and soft and gentle and _fatherly_. Too soon, far too soon, John says—with about as much resignation as Swift feels—that he should take her home. Swift nods sadly, but pulls the passenger door open and slides into the seat. It feels strange to sit at the front, rather than behind the Perspex screen in a black cab. John gets into the driver's seat and pulls the car out of the car park.

By the time the car parks on Baker Street just outside of 221B, they can already hear muffled shouting from upstairs. When Swift steps onto the pavement, she waves to Theodore behind the counter of Speedy's, whose eyes bug out of his head. Swift frowns, but John is already fumbling with keys for the black door, pulling it open and running up the stairs. Swift follows, and runs into her father and a girl screaming at each other. She calculates the angle of the girl's body, the power in her muscle and the stance of her feet, and runs into the room before she can take a swing.


	4. Four

**4.**

Wren turns and just about stifles a yelp, because not only is her Dad suddenly in this godforsaken stranger's house, but also another version of herself. The copy is about half an inch taller than her, and her hair is the wrong shade—too dark—but otherwise they're identical. A hard stone begins to form somewhere in her stomach. Sherlock has stepped back, glancing between the two girls, with his eyes occasionally flicking up to her Dad.

"John," he says eventually, and for someone who had been so sure of himself for the duration of their heated argument, his voice suddenly sounds like it's seconds away from breaking. "Swift."

So this is Swift. Wren's not sure how she feels about that.

"Sherlock, Wren," her Dad says, his voice stronger, more prepared. Somehow he knew that she would be here. Of course, he was always better at accepting being told he was wrong.

"What's going on," Wren demands. Swift hums.

Sherlock's brain has apparently malfunctioned, so John pushes him into a small green armchair. Wren supposes Swift will take the other armchair, the one opposite, but she stretches out like a cat on the sofa, then curls up against the arm on the far left. It's John who settles into the red armchair, looking for all the world as if he had belonged there his whole life. Wren blinks, then takes the other end of the sofa.

"Mrs Hudson!"

Wren flinches at the shout from Sherlock and blinks at the nonchalance of the other two. After a few moments, a small old lady patters up the stairs, her tone reprimanding.

"Sherlock, how many times have I—. John!"

There's a rush and hugging and Mrs Hudson is crying and saying that she'll make some tea, and Wren is still very confused so she says this, and then Mrs Hudson is crying over her. Wren is still very confused.

"Mrs Hudson, some tea please. Then everything shall be explained."

Her Dad shoots a sharp look at Sherlock as he says this, and something flicker's through the taller man's eyes. Then he nods, and there's obviously been a telepathic dialogue going on somehow because John relaxes back into the armchair. Wren looks back and forth between the two of them and is ready to scream—not for the first time that day—because she is _still very confused._

The kettle seems to take three hours to boil, and it feels like another three hours before the tea is finally being poured. Mrs Hudson doesn't ask any of the other three how they have their tea, but Wren asks for milk and no sugar. Then, finally, Mrs Hudson takes a seat between the two girls and it seems like the story will finally be revealed. Wren looks expectantly at her Dad, but he's looking at Sherlock, so Wren does so too, with a scowl. Sherlock's thick, black eyebrows are drawn tightly together over his eyes, and Wren widens her eyes—eyes that match Sherlock's. Maybe she thinks she can anticipate a little of what's going to be said now. Her heart stutters anyway as Sherlock begins the narrative.

 **[s+j]**

 _Two men walk into the room, but Sherlock doesn't bother to look up. It's Mike Stamford, so the other man is presumably the flatmate mentioned this morning. They're talking to each other about how much St Bart's has changed, before Sherlock asks for a phone and the new man offers his. Sherlock looks up and thanks him. After a brief glance at Mike, to confirm that this is the flatmate, Sherlock stands up and walks over to the short, light-haired man, who—once introduced as an old friend, John Watson—hands over his mobile. Sherlock notes the tan lines, the scuffs around the charger ports, the engraving on the back. He turns away to type._

 _"Which was it; Afghanistan or Iraq?" He asks._

 _The three of them talk for a while, briefly joined by Molly who comes by the lab to drop Sherlock's coffee off. Sherlock finally brings up the subject of the flatshare, then moves to leave._

 _"Is that it?" John says, his voice disbelieving._

 _"Is that what?"_

 _"We've only just met and we're gonna go and look at a flat?_

 _"Problem?"_

 _John's smile is as stunning as its owner is stunned._

 _"We don't know a thing about each other; I don't know where we're meeting; I don't even know your name."_

 _Sherlock grins and deduces Doctor John Watson, rattling off everything he has observed in the past ten minutes, then pulls the door open, before leaning back into the room. "The name is Sherlock Holmes, and the address is two two one 'b', Baker Street."_

 **[s+j]**

 _They solve cases together and live together and complain together and work together like a well-tuned orchestra, slotting into each other's lives like melodies slotting together to make a symphony. Sherlock casts longing glances at John when John is typing up his case notes, and John sends longing looks in Sherlock's direction as he crouches over a crime scene._

 _It's after a particularly bad case, during which Sherlock allows himself to get captured, and John knows that Sherlock can take care of himself, but there were five minutes when he thought—. John won't let it happen again. He couldn't bare it if he never got the chance to confess, the chance to see what would happen. So when Sherlock swoops out of the building, shooting behind himself and hitting every mark, John shoots the last man, and grabs Sherlock. He hopes he's right, hopes he hasn't miscalculated, and there's one terrible, terrible moment when Sherlock's body stays rigid against him, but then the World's Only Consulting Detective melts into Doctor John Watson's arms, and they are alone, together._ I love you. I love you.

 **[s+j]**

 _It's cold and it's wet and it's a Tuesday afternoon and John doesn't know whether he's trying to cry—to scream—or trying not to, because that's Sherlock's body lying on the pavement with a trickle of blood meandering across the tarmac and he's dead, he's dead, he's dead._

 **[s+j]**

 _John doesn't move on and Mrs Hudson gets worried. Eventually, John concedes to one date, dinner with Mary from the clinic._

 **[s+j]**

 _Sherlock is the waiter—he's alive—and it's all John can do not to kill him himself because how dare he (but he's alive!)._

 **[s+j]**

 _Eventually things settle down again and go back to normal. Mary isn't too offended; instead she starts to tag along and becomes pally with Sherlock too. She gets a date with someone called Sebastian from her gym club or wherever she goes on her Friday afternoons off._

 _Mary's the one who suggests it, in the end. She'd made a request for a friend, for Sherlock to find the money that had been stolen which had been the beginnings of a college fund for her new baby. Both John and Sherlock had been starstruck with the tiny child, and afterwards she goes behind their backs to speak to Harry about the possibility of her being a surrogate so the child has both fathers' DNA. When she announces the idea to the couple in question, they both stand there dumb for several minutes, until Sherlock thinks of asking Harry, and Mary declares triumphantly that she's already ready and willing._

 _No one foresaw twins, two tiny, adorable girls with soft wisps of brown hair, but Sherlock and John find the perfect names, for girls as small as fragile as the birds they're named after. They are swaddled and cuddled and taken home to love and care in the flat upstairs by John's request—out of reach of dangerous experiments._

 **[s+j]**

 _It's this danger that causes the argument. John insists that Sherlock's work is too dangerous, starts staying at home with the girls rather than leave them with Mrs Hudson while Sherlock and he go off on a case. Sherlock, in turn, becomes frustrated with John's inability to see that it's perfectly fine, the girls will be perfectly fine, and no one is going to get hurt, please won't you come, I'd be lost without my blogger._

 _John stays in the flat. Until he doesn't. Until the screaming of the two grown men wakes two young girls who add to the screaming. John has tears running down his face, but he also has a bag already packed—packed from the start—and he slowly drags himself up the stairs to lift Swift out of her pastel green cot, to kiss her and say goodbye in a cracked voice, before lowering her back down with whispered lullabies. He takes Wren from her soft yellow cot and picks up the car seat-carrier to strap her in. Harry's house is half an hour away, and she'll still be up watching the game shows on_ Challenge _. He's going there._

 _Sherlock tries to stop him leaving, tries to block his path, beg him to stay, coax him back. John shuts his ears, and shuts the door. Behind it, Sherlock weeps._

 **[swift]**

Swift's eyes are wet, but that seems to be the same as everyone in the room. Mrs Hudson is dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, and Wren is trying to hide her face in the sleeves of her jumper. John's face is turned away, and her father's eyes are glittering with tears he will refuse to let fall. There's a long moment of silence, before Mrs Hudson shakes her head.

"I always said you two would find each other again," she says, and her voice is wet and shaky too. She stands up. "I think we all need another cup of tea, but remember—"

"—You're my landlord, not my housekeeper," Sherlock recites dutifully, just about retraining from rolling his eyes, and Mrs Hudson is caught halfway between disapproval and amusement. Swift stretches out and stands as well, going to find her violin in her room so she can play something long and lost and sad and found and happy all at the same time.

Halfway through the first movement, Wren peeks around the edge of the open door and Swift pauses in her playing and sets the instrument carefully down on the dark red quilt on the bed. She then perches next to it, and invites Wren to sit in the swivel office chair at the desk by the window opposite to her. The other girl's footsteps are nervous and unsure, and Swift takes the time to assess her. A little shorter than herself, the hair lighter, longer and straighter. Still attends school, although she's passed her exams. Has a boyfriend. Swift blinks. She wonders what it would be like to have a boyfriend, or even just a friend her age. Her past experiences with people her age have not been the most pleasant. Wren finally takes a seat and cocks her head to watch Swift. Swift, unnerved, holds her hand out; she doesn't really know how to interact with people her own age now, never has really. Wren eyes the hand before shaking it, then takes a deep breath and stands up.

"So you're my sister, right? Identical twin sister. So, how about a hug?"

The hug is awkward because Swift doesn't know what she's doing, doesn't know when she got up off the bed even, but Wren is warm and cuddly and comforting and her _sister._ The thought makes Swift relax, and when they step back they are both grinning, mouths stretched open in half-deliriousness. [delirium?]

"I've always wanted a sister," Swift says. The statement is not entirely a lie, although the desire had always been eclipsed by the desperate need for a father. A sister would have been a nice addition, _is_ a nice addition. And twins? So many things could be achieved with twins that couldn't be done by anyone else. Swift can feel her smile stretching even wider, and something is bubbling up in her stomach that she doesn't recognise as laughter until it's overflowing and falling out of her mouth, stealing her breath and pulling her stomach in almost painfully. But the pain doesn't matter, it's good, and the last time she had a stitch was running away from that crazy drug lord; this is so much better. Her eyes are screwed shut but when she opens them, Wren is laughing too, they fall into each other again, clutching at arms and hands and the idea of _sisters, sisters, sisters._


	5. Five

**5.**

Sherlock doesn't move from his chair. He watches Mrs Hudson get up and start to clink around in the kitchen, then watches Swift flee to her room, and, after a few bars of music, Wren follows her. John doesn't move either, to start with. Sherlock wants his violin, but that would require going close by John, and he can't do that. A dim part of his brain wonders if this is what is was like for John after The Fall—if he had finally finished rebuilding after the earthquake that had destroyed everything, and then suddenly everything was turned on its head with another seismic shift that toppled the pseudo-normality when Sherlock came back. Something cold twists in his stomach, and something prickles behind his eyes and nose. He doesn't look at John.

Nevertheless, he can still hear it when John stands up and walks slowly and gently over to him, like someone creeping up to a skittish animal, trying not to scare it away. Sherlock thinks he objects to that comparison, but flinches anyway; John halts immediately. After several long, loud heartbeats, John moves again, sits on the floor in front of Sherlock's chair.

"You've been spending too much time with your daughter." The words hurt a little to say, and Sherlock hadn't meant to say them anyway—he was ignoring John. His stomach twists in anticipation of a bad reaction, but John merely speaks softly.

"Our daughter."

"Of course."

Sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side. Sherlock remembers saying that, eons ago. He's losing now. Or maybe they've both lost. They both lost themselves sixteen years ago. It seems like much longer than that, and yet it has only been a week since Swift was crawling around, too close to overflowing experiments for even Sherlock to be okay with. Sherlock sighs, and drags his eyes up to meet John's. John's eyes. John's eyes were always beautiful, and now the lines around them frame them, throw the sparkling flecks of brown into sharp contrast. The red of the curtains reflects in them, and Sherlock is sure he's not imagining the pure warmth radiating from them. Against his will, his body relaxes. John smiles wider. Sherlock shuffles slightly to the left. There has never been enough room on this chair for the both of them, never will, but it has never stopped them from sharing it anyway, half in each other's laps, just Being Together. Maybe this is what Sherlock has missed the most.

Mr Hudson comes back with tea—landlady not housekeeper—and chatters, glad to see John again, glad to see JohnandSherlock again. She wants to call D. I. Lestrade, and Mycroft, but she's not going to, and although none of this is ever said out loud, Sherlock sees and is grateful. Mrs Hudson always liked John.

The violin from Swift's room had stopped a while ago, but now there is rolling laughter, tumbling out of the doorway and down the hall, making all the adults smile. Sherlock's smile is not as reluctant as he feels it should be, but suddenly that's okay. Everything's okay. John is here—his presence warm and steady against Sherlock's right-hand side, both his daughters are here, with each other, laughing and enjoying themselves. Something buoyant and giddy and entirely too close to human emotion for Sherlock's liking rises up inside him. He thinks that even if Mycroft walked into the room right now, he could find it in him to be civil. Mycroft was always better when John was there, anyway.

And John is here now. Sherlock intends to make that a permanent state. John has to be here now, has to stay, because neither of them can handle another tear. The girls couldn't do it now, either. That's a good thing, Sherlock thinks. The girls are both of them, the two minds in one. They can control things, keep things from spiralling out, help the two men to understand each other better when Sherlock can only communicate through staccato notes and John only through blog posts. The girls can translate.

John and Mrs Hudson are talking, but Sherlock is content to sit back and observe. He can hear vague murmurs from Swift's room, too, but he doesn't strain to hear them too much for once, because for once it's not a conversation with him. Sherlock is partly sad and partly happy at that thought, because Swift has never had many friends and it's good for her to have someone her own age, but she has always been Sherlock's, even when they weren't talking except through angry compositions.

"I love you," Sherlock whispers into the back of John's neck. The other man stills for a moment, then entwines his hand in Sherlock's long fingers and leans into him ever so slightly and keeps on talking. Sherlock smiles softly. It might be easier to share Swift if it's with John and his—their daughter.

After a while, Mrs Hudson leaves, and John can mould his body into Sherlock's. Half an hour late, he whispers a response to Sherlock. Sherlock's grin spreads wider than it should, and they spend ten minutes together quietly, in Sherlock's old chair, that he's had for as long as he's had John and longer.

Eventually they both stand, staying close but not quite touching, and John wants to look around the flat to see what changes have been made. The answer is not much, except the subtle influence of a young girl, and the photos scattered randomly where Swift has attempted to put them up. Their old room is exactly the same but lonelier, and it brightens as soon as John steps in, as though the room was waiting for his return. Then John wants to see Swift's room. The girls have disappeared by this time; neither man is surprised or worried. It only means that John can look closely, can absorb the red, fiery walls, the black curtains, the violin case and the piano, the overflowing bookcase and the desk obviously being used by a writer with notebooks and pages sprawled across it. The wooden floor is pockmarked with dents, and scratches, and the bed is in the corner, leaving lots of floor space in the centre of the room. John closes his eyes, and Sherlock takes the time to watch John, watch the little twitch of a smile, the little crease that jumps at the corner of his eye. Sherlock doesn't want the moment to end, and it should be a foreign concept, but it never has been with John.


	6. Six

**6.**

Swift takes Wren to the Starbucks across from the station. D. I. Lestrade—when he finally arrives, bleary eyed and just about not walking into the door (he's going to order a double espresso, it's been a long day)—stops dead, and his head goes back and forth between the two girls.

"Swift?" he says, looking at Wren. "Not Swift?" Swift rolls her eyes and Lestrade points at her. "Swift."

"At last," Swift says, then waits for him to order his drink before he returns to where the girls were sitting.

"Well you Holmeses just love being difficult," the detective inspector says, setting down his coffee mug (double espresso—long night ahead; ink on side of righthand—paperwork; current job—writing up Swift's notes from the Smythe robbery case). "I assume you are a Holmes?"

"Wren Watson."

Wren's eye twitches and Swift is impressed by how well she kept calm as D. I. Lestrade nearly spits the boiling bitter liquid over her. While the adult splutters and chokes, Swift tries not to roll her eyes and hands a stack to Wren, who dabs at her jeans with remarkable decorum.

"So…uh…where did they magic you up from? I mean, I'm no scientist like these two, but I'm pretty confident with reproduction."

That hasn't been discussed but Wren knows. Swift could guess, but she listens as Wren reveals the existence of an 'Aunt Harry'. Lestrade seems very interested in the idea of a surrogate mother, and something clicks together in Swift's head and her eyes widen, but then she smiles.

"I was thinking of taking Wren to meet Uncle Mycroft," she says. Lestrade nods.

"I'm heading home; I can give you a lift." As if Swift doesn't know exactly where Lestrade lives, and that it's in the completely opposite direction to Mycroft's Gentlemen's Club.

Wren, however, doesn't know, and thanks the inspector. "If you're going the same way."

Lestrade glances at Swift. Swift doesn't say anything.

She doesn't say anything, either, when Mycroft welcomes Lestrade's offer to take all three of them back to Mycroft's townhouse, nor when Lestrade drives straight there without asking for directions. She does, however, have to fight to keep her eyebrows from rocketing into her hair. Wren catches her eye and Swift tries to convey the fact that she would explain later through telepathy. Something works because Wren nods with a glint in her eyes. The car purrs onwards.

Mycroft's townhouse is a three storey terrace house with a brown brick faced an ornamented windows. The houses on either side are divided into flats and rented out, but Mycroft owns all three floors and the basement of his. When they reach the house, Swift works hard on not saying anything, and Wren exclaims how close it is to the Natural History Museum and Science Museum, both of which Swift is intimately acquainted with. Mycroft offers to take her and Wren for a look around one of them tomorrow and both girls beam, although Wren mentions that they should probably go home for the night and then come back in the morning. Mycroft says he'll send Anthea. Lestrade looks loathe to go, but Swift ducks into the house and as far away from windows facing the front entrance as possible before dragging Wren upstairs to the small, pastel green room Swift claims as her own when she's here so they can sit and talk while the men…stand and talk.

"Mycroft is father's brother, but they don't get on," Swift says. She particularly likes Mycroft's access to interesting and otherwise unavailable resources, like the Personal Libraries and Archives at the National History Museum. She also likes his ability to get things done. Swift is slowly learning to manipulate people subtly like he does; her father alienates people too easily. Mycroft has a similar unfamiliarity with social conventions and expectations, but he's better at pretending. Swift explains this to Wren, as well as who Detective Inspector Lestrade was in more detail. Wren asks about Swift assisting on cases, and Swift says that next time Lestrade turns up at 221B Baker Street—inevitably in no more than a few days—Wren can come along too.

The girls chat for a while and Swift shares her newfound knowledge of her Uncle and sort-of-uncle. Eventually, however, Mycroft calls them down for a dinner that has appeared from nowhere—as things so often seem to do around Mycroft—and they talk about Wren. Usually the huge dining room (which Swift often thought more suitable for a manor house than a terraced plot in the cramped centre of London) felt like an echoing cavern unless those eating sat practically on each others' laps, but as they discuss normal things like childhoods and boyfriends—or as normal as possible for Holmeses—it feels homely for the first time. Wren tells them about her friends at school and her boyfriend Callum, and about how she sits at the back of the class and doodles and then she stops. Hung at the far end of the dining room is a landscape with a single girl playing in a field. Wren's eyes widen as they catch sight of it and her face turns a strange colour.

"Is that a W. W.?" Swift shrugs but Mycroft nods although he has one eyebrow raised.

Swift has never taken much notice of the painting, except as a pretty picture to admire over dinner. She certainly never knew the artist. The initials, however, coupled with the look on Wren's face, make her eyes widen to match the other girl's.

"Is that yours?" She asks Wren, who nods, her eyes still fixed on the framed piece. "It's amazing."

"Thanks. I can't believe you have one of my pieces."

Mycroft hums non-comitally. "I have another piece of yours in my bedroom: the London Eye. Your artwork is very impressive." While Wren radiates happiness, Swift looks sharply at her uncle and wonders how much the paintings were bought for, and how much of that was strictly necessary to secure the artwork. Wren's eyes are still shining in the same way Swift's father's do when there's been a double murder. Mycroft is watching the back of Wren's head with an expression that Swift can't ever remember seeing on him before. It's soft and caring and regretful and Swift knows that Mycroft has had a file on Wren since the moment John left the house with her. Sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side. Mycroft had told Swift that once. Her father had said it too. Maybe Mycroft lost, too, when John and Wren disappeared. It couldn't have been easy to watch someone in your family grow up and thinking you could never actually see them. Swift took her eyes off the two for a minute and glanced at the clock. She's actually startled by how late it is—almost eleven o'clock—and shovels the rest of her food into her mouth before standing.

"We should go" she says. Wren tears her eyes off the painting and copies Swift in eating and standing, grabbing her coats from her chair as she walks past. Mycroft hands Swift money for a cab and says again that he'll send Anthea in the morning. Swift smiles and joins Wren on the curb.


End file.
